Re: Batman and Robin silliness.
Until recently, I had no idea there were multiple people (in the comics) that acted as Robin. Or Batman himself, for that matter. I don't mind the character Robin per se, as in the dynamic duo. There's a lot going on psychologically, which is interesting. But as I suspected, and a quick Google search seems to confirm, the character of Robin was originally invented to make the Batman comics appeal to a younger audience. The costume was a product of it's era. So yeah, a yellow cape totally doesn't REALISTICALLY fit in with Batman trying to be a stealthy ninja. I guess in modern takes, they kept the character's colors for tradition or something like that. Or maybe just the visual style? To make him stand out on the page against Batman? But what REALLY bothers me about Robin's costume is from the waist down. I mean, put on some freaking pants already! Again, realistically, you wouldn't have bare skin like this while crime fighting. Hell, I tend to wear pants even when doing more mundane activities with less risk of physical abuse. And those... shoes, if you can call them that. More like elf slippers? Not exactly standard combat footwear, I don't think. And again, as far as what would be realistic goes... He's basically wearing his Flying Grayson's costume. At least, the same colors. And it certainly looks like a circus costume. You'd think someone would piece it together that there's a mask vigilante wearing the same colors and around the same age as the orphan son of the Flying Graysons. Batman wouldn't allow him to wear that costume for that reason alone, it would be too easy for someone to figure out his identity. As I understand it, the character's appearance was created before the origin story. But still.
I like the modern Robin costumes, where he still has yellow and red but he's wearing boots and pants. That's tolerable. They poke fun at the yellow cape at the end of Dark Victory. Batman tells Dick that he should rethink the color, to which he sternly says no on account of it being his family's color. They also threw in there that Robin was his mother's nickname for him. It's easy to forgive the name Robin and the yellow cape after reading Dark Victory. Still, put some boots and pants on!
As far as Robin and all of the other unrealistic things that happen, I mean, it's a comic. I choose to employ suspension of disbelief. Things are a lot more enjoyable when you do. For a while, I was going down that road. Getting annoyed at things because of how outlandish or unrealistic they were. But I mean, if I wanted realism, I wouldn't be reading a comic book.
But as far as Batman doing things that would cause severe injuries, well that actually has happened! I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but two characters from The Long Halloween are most definitely severely injured and crippled in Dark Victory. One of them by Batman.
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I read Snow, the Legends of the Dark Knight 5 issue series regarding the origin of Mr. Freeze. It was the first Batman comic I've read so far that I was kind of bored with. I mean, if you gave me the story in bullet points I would think it sounded alright. But in execution, I think it fell kind of flat. I don't know, maybe it was the mood I was in when I read it. SPOILERS, but you got two main things going on. The origin of Mr. Freeze and Batman assembling some kind of team to aid in his crime fighting. The later being an interesting premise.
A Batman still early in his career, pre-Robin, has identified that he can't accomplish all that he wants to all by himself. So he assembles this team to help with gathering intel and research and stuff like that. But the minimal field work gets them into hot water, and by the end of the book he abandons the whole thing. It was actually the more interesting part of Snow.
The main plot was the origin of Mr. Freeze, but it just felt flat. A man's wife is terminally ill with no cure. He works as a scientist on some kind of cryogenics project that is kept vague, probably so they don't have to worry about the science and technobabble. He tries to somehow treat his wife, which is not explained at all, but ends up messing her up, which also isn't explained. It's really his own fault, it's the one Snow is actually clear about. His co-workers changed the routine or whatever (again, they're not totally clear) and he didn't double check before blindly running this... whatever it is he's doing... on his wife. And then somehow he becomes Mr. Freeze. It really is unclear how it all happens. Anyway, the thing with his wife and possible his own physical change causes him to go insane I guess. Is this a common thing for Batman villains? To turn into a super villain by insanity caused by trauma? So now Mr. Freeze is hell bent on saving his wife and stopping those who wanted to use this cryogenics tech for evil. But he's clearly insane. But not in a Joker or Two Face kind of way, he seems just completely detached from reality. Hallucinating his wife and his surrounding being much more cheerful than they really are.
Two things would have fixed Snow, in my opinion. There was not enough quality time spent with Victor Fries before becoming Mr. Freeze. If they would have made Victor more sympathetic, especially with the situation with his wife, the events would have been more impactful. And I can understand wanted to stay vague to a point regarding the cryogenics, but having NO details of how anything works or WHAT Victor was trying to do to cure his wife makes me not care at all about what happened. Mostly because I don't understand what happened. All that is really explained is that Victor wants his project to be used for medicinal purposes or possibly a deterrent but most definitely not as a weapon. It's easy to understand how it's used as a weapon, it's a freaking gun that freezes things lol. But the medicinal side of the project is not explained at all. The explanation in the movie Batman and Robin was actually better!
edit: Forgot to say this about the Joker... With the fans that the character has, and what I have seen of him, I had high hopes for the Joker in the comics. I mean, the Nicholson and Ledger performances stand on their own. And the Joker from Arkham Asylum was very entertaining. Maybe not the character as written, per se, but Mark Hamill's performance was just a delight. But so far of what I've seen of the Joker in the comics has been very, I don't know, flat. Just sort of a color by numbers character. Granted, I haven't read many Joker-centric stories yet. Just The Man Who Laughs, but even in that the Joker seemed sort of one dimensional. The Joker has appeared in other stories I've read so far, but he's just sort of there. Like, "Hey, I'm the Joker! Hahaha!" I still haven't read The Killing Joke yet, that one seems to get praise. So we'll see.
